was
the choicest; and that was the band led by Taras Bulba. All contributed
to give him an influence over the others: his advanced years, his
experience and skill in directing an army, and his bitter hatred of the
foe. His unsparing fierceness and cruelty seemed exaggerated even to the
Cossacks. His grey head dreamed of naught save fire and sword, and his
utterances at the councils of war breathed only annihilation.

It is useless to describe all the battles in which the Cossacks
distinguished themselves, or the gradual courses of the campaign. All
this is set down in the chronicles. It is well known what an army raised
on Russian soil, for the orthodox faith, is like. There is no power
stronger than faith. It is threatening and invincible like a rock, and
rising amidst the stormy, ever-changing sea. From the very bottom of the
sea it rears to heaven its jagged sides of firm, impenetrable stone. It
is visible from everywhere, and looks the waves straight in the face
as they roll past. And woe to the ship which is dashed against it! Its
frame flies into splinters, everything in it is split and crushed, and
the startled air re-echoes the piteous cries of the drowning.

In the pages of the chronicles there is a minute description of how the
Polish garrisons fled from the freed cities; how the unscrupulous Jewish
tavern-keepers were hung; how powerless was the royal hetman, Nikolai
Pototzky, with his numerous army, against this invincible force; how,
routed and pursued, he lost the best of his troops by drowning in a
small stream; how the fierce Cossack regiments besieged him in the
little town of Polon; and how, reduced to extremities, he promised,
under oath, on the part of the king and the government, its full
satisfaction to all, and the restoration of all their rights and
privileges. But the Cossacks were not men to give way for this. They
already knew well what a Polish oath was worth. And Pototzky would never
more have pranced on his six-thousand ducat horse from the Kabardei,
attracting the glances of distinguished ladies and the envy of the
nobility; he would never more have made a figure in the Diet, by giving
costly feasts to the senators--if the Russian priests who were in the
little town had not saved him. When all the popes, in their brilliant
gold vestments, went out to meet the Cossacks, bearing the holy pictures
and the cross, with the bishop himself at their head, crosier in hand
and mitre on his head, t